Mobility comes down to the lines between online and offline blurring rapidly, with organizations sprinting to put the infrastructure in place to catch up with the trend.

The blurring of the online and offline is happening all around us in a bi-directional manner – where the customer expects to interact with the business however and whenever they wish and get the same experience regardless of where they are or what they are doing- and for the business to be able to deliver exactly the same information and services to the customer regardless of how or where they choose to interact.

Is this new? Maybe not, but the O2O (online to offline) concept was truly brought it to life by the Tokyo Metro and their recently launched innovative offering for consumers.

Tokyo Metro carries 6.22 million passengers daily. This past September they announced a new service with two partners: the convenience store operator 7-11 Japan and the Ito-Yokado supermarket chain. Read More »

Cisco SVP of HQ Sales – Japan, Yasufumi Hirai, and I had the privilege to meet Sheryl Sandberg earlier this month at a private luncheon reception sponsored by Nikkei Weekly News. We were so inspired by her. She gave me a hug when I mentioned I was from Cisco. She says “John Chambers has been so supportive with Lean In and Cisco is doing amazing things.” Prior to the luncheon, she met with Japan Prime Minister Abe.

Sheryl mentioned she is not an expert in Japan but understands that the challenges for Japanese women are much harder. She clearly did her homework on Japan provided useful data on Japan’s diversity demographics. Her advice to Japan:
1. Address stereotypes and bias that hold women back. For example, women are viewed as caregivers and nurturers. Men are viewed as providers.
2. Change corporate policies like the gender pay gap, long work hours and re-invite women back after maternity leave. Make men feel more comfortable working with women.
3. Achieve more balance in the home.

Enjoy the photo! The Ustream of the Japan Evening Session is below. Sheryl presents at 1 min. 30 sec. I truly felt her positive energy.

As I wander through the world of broadband, I frequently worry that for every step forward, we take one step back. As I’ve written about previously, we seem to be at an inflection point where we see the potential value of broadband, but putting it into reality seems to be more ephemeral.

Especially here in the U.S., we seem to be “talking the talk” more than we’re “walking the walk.” The confluence of certain events recently has underscored my ongoing concern even more recently.

Following on from my recent blog about “Is Manufacturing Coming Back to the US?” one of Morgan Stanley’s Investment guys, Ruchir Sharma, (Managing Director and the head of the Emerging Markets Equity team) has a book out called ‘Breakout Nations’ and in it he says:

“Every Investment idea is right for a while”

He was talking to Fareed Zakaria on his GPS program. Fareed cited that in the 1980’s investing in Japan made you a big winner until the 90’s came around. In the 1990’s it was all about Tech stocks. Then the Tech bubble burst. The Fad for the 2000’s was emerging markets.

And he asked are emerging markets submerging? I was interested mainly because the discussion lead to which countries invest most in R&D, and that is a leading indicator of success for economies worldwide. In fact, the numbers don’t lie. It looks like we may be entering a new phase with different leaders of growth, and it may be the US that becomes the new focus of manufacturing and innovation.

Yesterday at the Cisco Asia Pacific, Japan and Greater China Partner-Led Network Conference that took place in Bangkok, we took the opportunity to announce the recipients of the Cisco Smart Service awards. The purpose of these awards is to recognise our partners and customers from the region who showed forward-thinking approaches in the delivery and integration of Cisco Smart Services. The winners were chosen for their innovation and expertise that enable “Smart Everywhere” for their end-users across the region.

The awards are divided up into three categories; partner awards – for partners who used Smart Services to accelerate growth of their services business; vendor awards – for vendors who have demonstrated innovation and operational excellence for Cisco Services; and customer awards – for those customers that have used Smart Services to fuel their business performance, efficiency and productivity.

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